That an untaught, portionless rustic, reared not only in one of the rudest localities, but in the most troublous and critical era of our country, when the general poverty and insecurity rendered any attention to personal culture difficult, almost impossible, and graduating from a log school-house, should have been celebrated for the union in his manners, of grace with frankness, ease with fascination, is not unworthy of remark. Of the fact, those who never knew Mr. Clay personally, may have abundant attestations, which none others will need.
While in Europe as a negotiator for Peace with Great Britain, Mr. Clay was brought into immediate and familiar contact, not only with his associates, the urbane and cultivated John Quincy Adams, whose life had been divided between seminaries and courts; the philosophic Gallatin and the chivalric Bayard, but also with the noble and aristocratic Commissioners of Great Britain, and with many others of like breeding and position, to whom the importance of their mission, its protracted labors and its successful result, commended our Plenipotentiaries. A single anecdote will illustrate the impression he every where produced. An octogenarian British Earl, who had retired from public life because of his years, but who still cherished a natural interest in public men and measures, being struck by the impression made in the aristocratic circles of London by the American Commissioners, then on their way home from Ghent, requested a friend to bring them to see him at his house, to which his growing infirmities confined him. The visit was promptly and cheerfully paid, and the obliging friend afterwards inquired of the old Lord as to the impression the Americans had made upon him. "Ah!" said the veteran, with the "light of other days" gleaming from his eyes, "I liked them all, but I liked the Kentucky man best." It was so every where.
One specimen has been preserved of Mr. Clay's felicity of repartee and charm of conversation, as exhibited while in Paris, immediately after the conclusion of Peace at Ghent. He was there introduced to the famous Madame de Stael, who cordially addressed him with—"Ah, Mr. Clay! I have been in England, and have been battling your cause for you there." "I know it, madame; we heard of your powerful interposition, and are grateful and thankful for it." "They were much enraged against you," said she: "so much so, that they at one time thought seriously of sending the Duke of Wellington to command their armies against you!" "I am very sorry, madame," replied Mr. Clay, "that they did not send his Grace." "Why?" asked she, surprised. "Because, madame, if he had beaten us, we should have been in the condition of Europe, without disgrace. But, if we had been so fortunate as to defeat him, we should have greatly added to the renown of our arms."
At his next meeting with "Corinne," at her own house, Mr. Clay was introduced by her to the conqueror at Waterloo, when she related the above conversation. The Duke promptly responded that, had it been his fortune to serve against the Americans, and to triumph over them, he should indeed have regarded that triumph as the proudest of his achievements.
Mr. Clay was in London when the tidings of Waterloo arrived, and set the British frantic with exultation. He was dining one day at Lord Castlereagh's, while Bonaparte's position was still uncertain, as he had disappeared from Paris, and fled none knew whither. The most probable conjecture was that he had embarked at some little port for the United States, and would probably make his way thither, as he was always lucky on water. "If he reaches your shores, Mr. Clay," gravely inquired Lord Liverpool (one of the Ministers), "will he not give you a great deal of trouble?" "Not the least," was the prompt reply of the Kentuckian; "we shall be very glad to receive him; to treat him with all hospitality, and very soon make him a good democrat." A general laugh here restored the hilarity of the party.
The magnetism of Mr. Clay's manner and conversation have perhaps received no stronger testimony than that of Gen. Glascock, a political antagonist, who came into Congress from Georgia, during the fierce struggle which followed the removal of the Deposits. "Gen. Glascock," said a mutual friend, at a party one evening, "shall I make you acquainted with Mr. Clay?" "No, Sir!" was the prompt and stern response; "I choose not to be fascinated and moulded by him, as friend and foe appear to be, and I shall therefore decline his acquaintance."
Mr. Clay had a natural repugnance to caucuses, conventions, and the kindred contrivances whereby great men are elaborated out of very small materials, and was uniformly a candidate for Congress "on his own hook," with no fence between him and his constituents. Only once in the course of his long Representative career was he obliged to canvass for his election, and he was never defeated, nor ever could be, before a public that he could personally meet and address. The one searching ordeal to which he was subjected, followed the passage of the "Compensation Act" of 1816, whereby Congress substituted for its own per diem a fixed salary of $1,500 to each Member. This act raised a storm throughout the country, which prostrated most of its supporters. The hostility excited was especially strong in the West, then very poor, especially in money: $1,500 then, being equal to $4000 at present. John Pope (afterward Gen. Jackson's Governor of Arkansas), one of the ablest men in Kentucky, a federalist of the old school, and a personal antagonist of Mr. Clay, took the stump as his competitor for the seat, and gave him enough to do through the canvass. They met in discussion at several local assemblages, and finally in a pitched battle at Higbie; a place central to the three counties composing the district, where the whole people collected to hear them. Pope had the district with him in his denunciation of the Compensation Bill, while Clay retorted with effect, by pressing home on his antagonist the embittered and not very consistent hostility of the latter to the war with Great Britain, recently concluded, which uniformly had been very popular in Kentucky. The result was decisive: Mr. Clay was re-elected by about six hundred majority.
That excited canvass was fruitful of characteristic incidents like the following:
While traversing the district, Mr. Clay encountered an old hunter, who had always before been his warm friend, but was now opposed to his re-election on account of the Compensation Bill. "Have you a good rifle, my friend?" asked Mr. Clay. "Yes." "Did it ever flash?" "Once only," he replied. "What did you do with it—throw it away?" "No, I picked the flint, tried it again, and brought down the game." "Have I ever flashed but upon the Compensation Bill?" "No!" "Will you throw me away?" "No, no!" exclaimed the hunter with enthusiasm, nearly overpowered by his feelings; "I will pick the flint, and try you again!" He was afterward a warm supporter of Mr. Clay.
An Irish barber in Lexington, Jerry Murphy by name, who had always before been a zealous admirer and active supporter of Mr. Clay, was observed during this canvass to maintain a studied silence. That silence was ominous, especially as he was known to be under personal obligation to Mr. Clay for legal assistance to rescue him from various difficulties in which his hasty temper had involved him. At length, an active and prominent partisan of the speaker called on the barber, with whom he had great influence, and pressed him to dispel the doubt that hung over his intentions by a frank declaration in favor of his old favorite. Looking his canvasser in the eye, with equal earnestness and shrewdness, Murphy responded; "I tell you what, docthur; I mane to vote for the man that can put but one hand into the Treasury." (Mr. Pope had lost one of his arms in early life, and the humor of Pat's allusion to this circumstance, in connection with Mr. Clay's support of the Compensation Bill, was inimitable.)